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opportune flu timing…

elephant seal sanctuary, Piedras Blanca, CA

Today is day 10 of my stint with the flu. Yesterday I felt totally great yet did nothing because I had been warned of relapse. And alas, today, there it was, just the same. After 10.5 hrs of sleep I could barely get out of bed. Of course by now, hubs who got the shot (as opposed to me who refuses each year because “I never get the flu”) is also ill. So between the two of us and the dog it looks like the elephant seal sanctuary around here.

Just before the flu we took a 6 day road trip down the Central Coast for a Road Scholar program on migrations. It was an interesting program, full of intelligent people, many who came in escape of the midwest and east coast winter. We learned we are not birders, as if there was any doubt before. I could not even see the silver throated cockle tweeter let alone name it and where was the brown shingled outhouse when I needed it?

At the close of 2017 I was finishing up no 24 in my three year series Defining Moments. And I was worried for a couple months before that about what next?¬†There is nothing like a deadline to motivate a person like me. For three years I did not have to worry about what’s next? Sure it took me a bit to get started, but once I did, it was fairly smooth sailing.

I tried not to think about it, but alas it was there needling me, what’s next? what’s next? So I started to pay more attention to what it is going on around me, and in the world, what caught my attention and what didn’t, and really began to hone in on what I might introduce to my work.

Then I went on vacation, where I got some heartbreaking news from a friend, which affects my current project, then I got the flu. Then I lost interest in anything I would normally do to calm myself. I have lots of handwork I can do. I have knitting to rip out and restart. I have books I can read. I can do nothing, but fret and twist in the wind.

The truly ironic part of this whole scenario is I am not lacking for inspiration. I simply cannot contain my mind. I am bored out of my gourd lying here, unable to work. I want control of it. Isn’t that ridiculous, sick with the flu and still trying to choreograph the show? Did I learn nothing with the 27 month knee inflammation? Surrender, Dorothy!

When I was a young woman with bad menstrual cramps I envisioned the perfect comfort would be to sit in a vat of warm chocolate pudding. This may be the time to ferret that out! Or I could simply contemplate the dehydrated navel orange…ymmm!